Diary Of A CEO: w/ Divorce Lawyer James Sexton (Transcript)

But I will say without question that if I get any sense that this person would either benefit from individual therapy that might help them view the relationship differently and come to the relationship differently, I will not hesitate to refer them.

And then there are people that, and it’s more common than you’d think, that something awful has happened in the relationship. They had an affair and got caught. They caught their spouse having an affair. They’ve lost their job, and it created tremendous discord in their relationship. And that often will feel to me like something that perhaps would benefit from the intervention of mental health professionals or everyone just taking a breath and taking a minute, especially when there’s kids involved. But even when there aren’t.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Are your clients predominantly men or women?

JAMES SEXTON: It’s pretty much an even split, really. Yeah, I represent a lot of either very high achieving, high net worth individuals or people married to them.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And are the reasons that they come to you, those two different groups different? Like the reason why they want a separation, is it fundamentally different?

The Truth About Infidelity

JAMES SEXTON: So the specific example of cheating, I would say men get caught cheating more often than women.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Does that mean they cheat more?

JAMES SEXTON: No, it means they get caught cheating more. I don’t think that anyone could really, truly accurately say, you know, I know people love statistics, and I know that guests have a tendency to come on and say, well, 72% of people who are… Everything I’m saying is based on what I’ve observed in 25 years of facilitating the demise of marriages.

Men and women both cheat. Men cheat in just more scattershot, stupid ways than women do. When women cheat, in my experience professionally, it’s usually an indication of, like, the, it’s the absolute end of this relationship, the relationship is over. And this is either a soft place to land or it’s sort of a final opportunity for this person to solidify, this woman to solidify in her head that, yeah, this thing is over.

Whereas men, I’ve really had hundreds at this point of men sit across from me who’ve been caught in an affair or sense that they’re about to get caught in an affair. And they say to me, like, “Yeah, this had nothing to do with my wife. Like, I love my wife. It had nothing to do with that. It just, I don’t know, I just, I don’t know why I did what I did. I just did it.”

And I know everyone kind of wants to, because in civilized society, it feels good to kind of go like, “Oh, I can’t believe that that’s, how could someone say that?” But shut up. Like, if you have potato chips in your cabinet, you know, you know that you’re not supposed to eat them. You don’t want to eat them. You want vibrant, good health. You want to take care of yourself. But they’re there. They’re there, and you’re human.

And, like, I can control my food environment better than my brain. Like, I have a lot of resolve when I wake up in the morning, but at about 7, 8 o’clock at night, when I’m a little bit tired and it’s been a long day and I deserve something. If the potato chips are there, I’m eating the potato chips.

Like, we’re human. We’re human. There are times where we’re just feeling lonely or hungry or angry or tired or some combination of those factors. And this warm thing, like the connection to another person, the joy of flirtation, the excitement of feeling the energy between yourself and whatever type of person that you’re attracted to. I think it’s very normal.

And then the problem becomes that you’re not thinking about the consequences of those things. If you were thinking about the consequences of those things, you’d make better choices. But we all know that discipline is trading what you want now for what you want most. And sometimes it’s hard to remember what you want most and to keep it in your line of sight.

The Most Common Reason Relationships Fail

STEVEN BARTLETT: So from your experience, you know, if my fiance someday ends up walking into your practice, what is the reason she’s likely to end up there? From her perspective, asking you to help her get out of the relationship with me?

JAMES SEXTON: The most obvious, if you’re going to be like the most, the average, the statistical average, it would be that you’ve stopped seeing her and stopped noticing her in the list of things that are important to Steven, that she’s somewhere in the middle to bottom of that list.

Like, for a high achiever like you, for someone who’s entrepreneurial in the manner that you are, for someone who, you know, lives the kind of lifestyle that you do, where you’re on this coast one day and this country another day, and flying here on a moment’s notice and getting invitations to, and you have to triage because you couldn’t possibly do all the things that you’d like to do, it usually would be that she just feels herself slipping in the rankings.

And I think that is often not a function of what you’re, like that lifestyle I just described, it’s a function of where you take time to fit her into that. Because I genuinely have found tremendous number of examples of people who, and this is in the relationship work, who have that level of intensity in their life and that level of chaos in their schedule. And it’s unpredictable.

But they have that ability every morning or every afternoon or every once in a while, but consistently to say, “Hey, I have a minute between recordings. I just wanted you to know I was thinking of you.” Or, “Hey, you know, I heard that song when I was in the car from here to here, and it makes me think of you. And I can’t wait to see you next week.”

You know, something like that, to me, like, how hard is that, by the way? Doesn’t have to be like a global lifestyle. It could even be, “Hey, we got a couple of kids and two dogs. And, you know, my mom is sick and I got to tend to her, so I’m super busy.” But how do you let your partner know, “Hey, you’re still really important. We’re still really connected to each other.”

Because that’s the number one complaint, that’s the number one reason, particularly with women, that I’m going to have a woman sitting across from me divorcing someone who’s a great provider, great protector, great, all of those.

The Challenge of Being Present

STEVEN BARTLETT: That is not obvious to everybody. And I’ll be honest, it wasn’t necessarily obvious to me. The way that I operate naturally, and this is just the way that I am. I’ve spoken to so many of my friends to understand how they operate and the way that their brain works is when I’m here, the only thing I’m thinking about is this. And I almost, I’m remarkable at forgetting everything else and being completely here.

JAMES SEXTON: Good.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Now, that sounds like a good thing. But it also means that I can lose 14 hours and forget to check in. I can forget, you know…

JAMES SEXTON: Is it also true when you’re with her?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yes. When we have scheduled the time.

JAMES SEXTON: Good.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So when we’ve scheduled the time to go and do something together, I’m there. I’m not on my phone, I’m not doing anything else.

JAMES SEXTON: Good, good, good. I think that’s a tremendous priority. I’m hearing more and more from people the feeling of, “Yeah, we’re together, but we’re not together. We’re sitting there and they’re on their phone or they’re doing other things.”

And I think that it’s really, really important that one of the really important aspects of relationship be that there is time where you give each other that level of focus. But again, you know, like, it’s just not something we are necessarily taught. We have, maybe we have our parents as models, but very often they’re not good models.

Opposites Attract

STEVEN BARTLETT: What’s interesting here, as well is for some reason, I’ve chosen someone who’s, like, the opposite of me in terms of the way that I am.

JAMES SEXTON: Partly because she’s the opposite.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah, probably. And when I’ve spoken to some of my friends who are quite like me, they’ve also chosen partners who are the opposite of them.

JAMES SEXTON: Could you imagine?

STEVEN BARTLETT: I know.

JAMES SEXTON: Could you imagine two of you? Like, imagine me with me, you know, you with you? That would, like, it would be so intense.

STEVEN BARTLETT: This is why it becomes so easy to misunderstand. Because we go through life assuming the other person has the same perspective as we do, and they feel the same way that we do about things.

JAMES SEXTON: What’s the solution to that?

I’ve had to learn to check in.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, but don’t you think she loves that about you?

STEVEN BARTLETT: She does. She actually just sent me a message this morning saying, thank you so much, because I said when I left this time, I said, listen, I’m going to FaceTime you every day, even if it’s for just one minute.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. Yeah. So isn’t that lovely, though? You’re still trying to figure out, how can I be better at this thing? And that’s amazing. That’s a beautiful thing.

You know what’s so funny is if I walked into your home and on the table there was, you know, the Power of Habit by Doring or the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I would go, oh, look at Stephen. He’s still so successful. He’s still trying to sharpen the point of the spear. Amazing. You know, but if you walk in and you see a book, you know, how to Stay in Love, you go, ooh, things all right with Stephen? Like, things going, okay? What’s going on with the relationship?

Why don’t we as a society just acknowledge we’re kind of bad at this? We’re kind of bad at maintaining connection. We’re kind of bad at helping, like, feeling loved and feeling worthy of love and helping our partner feel loved and figuring out how to maintain connection. And maybe the key is that little thing, that one minute, FaceTime, that one minute of saying, hey, maybe we should try this other thing.

What are you actually saying? What you’re actually saying is, I want to be good at this job. How can I be good at this job? How can I stay good at it? How can I get even better at it? Like, we go for the job interview, and we want this job so bad. Like, that’s what dating is. Dating is, I’m sending my resume all over the place. I’m sending it all over the place. I hope I can find something, something that suits my skills and my needs and where they want me, and I’ll be well compensated, and I’ll get something from it, and I’ll give something to it. Because I have all this talent and I have all this stuff, and I want to give it to a worthy cause, and I want to be compensated for that, and I want to feel part of something. That’s all dating is. It’s a job interview.

And then you get the job. And for a little while, you’re like, I got the job.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s the—

JAMES SEXTON: Oh, my God, you should see the office. It’s amazing. And you should. And I did. I knew exactly what was going. You know, there’s room for growth. There’s room for growth in this job. It’s going to be great, you know. And I really feel like there’s room for advancement. Like, this could be the job. This could be my career. This could be my vocation. It could be meaningful and wonderful. I think I have something I could contribute to.

And we’re so excited. And you jump ahead three years later, and we’re like, oh, that f*ing job. That job. Yeah. No, I got to go to work again. Like, yep. All right. There you go. That’s it. You know, I got a friend who just got the best job. Oh, my God. They have their. They got the great.

And that’s all we. Instead of trying to remember that at some point, the relationship that you’re in was something you aspired to. Like, the idea that you were someday going to find a person who just was your favorite person and you were their favorite person, and you were going to be there for each other and see each other’s blind spots and help each other, like, figure out who you are and be it. And that you were going to grow together and change together. And some core things would stay exactly the same, and some things would change in beautiful, meaningful ways. And you’d see each other through amazing things and terrible things and all the things that the world throws at you. You’d never be alone again because you’d have this person.

And somehow it’s considered sort of odd to check in and want to be good at that job and have performance reviews. Like, you run teams. You run so many teams. How often do you go, we don’t need to have performance reviews.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I think at the heart of this is, we assume probably through media and social media, that relationships are supposed to be effortless.

JAMES SEXTON: Why?

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s just kind of what you see, right? Like, I remember, I remember my girlfriend telling me the other day, she was like, oh, there’s this couple I follow on Instagram and they’re like, amazing. They’re like the perfect couple. And it’s just, just turned out that the guy is sleeping with someone else.

And I thought again, I thought, well, my girlfriend vicariously watching that couple for the last five years has probably increased her expectations on what a relationship should be because she’s just had this sort of two dimensional window. But there was some. The natural mess of relationship was taking place outside of view, and we all just have the 2D window. Like relationship problems on Instagram, broadcasting. That doesn’t drive followership.

JAMES SEXTON: No. And what I’ll also say is, look, we formulate a lot of our conception of what a relationship should look like by portrayals of relationships in film and television. Right?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

Relationships Aren’t Like Rom-Coms

JAMES SEXTON: Okay, so can we agree that the rom-com or the romantic film is basically just an emotional version of pornography? Like, it’s a stylized exerted falsehood that’s designed to amplify the most visually and emotionally compelling or stimulating aspects of things. Like, yes, there’s conflict, but it gets cleaned up very neatly and very nicely.

Like, there’s. It’s. So this perception that relationships should be effortless is based, I think, on largely that which is this feeling that. And again, whether a story is a comedy or a tragedy depends on where you end the story. Right? So we always end the story in a spot where it’s like, ta da, they’re in love and they walk off hand in hand. But, right, they walk off into life. They walk off into this ecosystem of life that’s filled with complexity and there’s factors beyond our control that are impacting our emotional state and the emotional state of our partner, the you, the me and the we.

So there’s a lot going on and the thought that, well, this should be effortless, everything else is a lot of work and potentially, and by the way, the opposite, like, this is effortless and this is a drudgery. And we tend to just see things in that binary way unnecessarily. Like we’ve made so much progress as a society when it comes to not viewing everything in a binary. Like there’s not as much rigidity about gender roles anymore. There’s not as rigidity about, you know, are you a worker? Are you like a career person or a family person? Like, there’s a sense of, wait, you can kind of be a little bit of both. Like, look at these things as a spectrum a little bit.

So. But this, we’re still pretty glued into this idea that, like, relationships are supposed to be the smoothest, easiest thing, or relationships are hard work. You’re not supposed to be happy all the time. And shut up if you think that that’s what you are. Oh, you’re not happy, nobody’s happy, or you’re not supposed to be happy. It’s not the point of marriage. The point of marriage is a commitment.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Are relationships supposed to be simple?

JAMES SEXTON: I don’t know what you mean by simple. Simple to navigate. No, they’re obviously not simple to navigate. Because 56% of them end in divorce.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is it going to be hard?

JAMES SEXTON: If your definition of hard is I have to pay some level of attention to it, then yes, it’s going to be hard. Is that hard? Like, is that hard? Really? Is that hard? Like, I don’t think it’s that hard. Paying attention isn’t that hard. Remembering to pay attention might be hard. But don’t you create reminders for yourself? You’ve got so many gadgets and you can’t have some reminder in the day of, like, oh, her. Keep her in my line of sight again, it doesn’t mean you don’t love her that she’s not front of mind. It means you’re a driven, hardworking person. I’m a driven, hardworking person. There’s tons of times where very important things in my life aren’t front of mind, but that’s why I use reminders.

Why Relationships End

STEVEN BARTLETT: So to invert that question that I asked at the top of this. If I am to come to you at some point in the future, James, and I say, listen, I need a divorce, what am I likely to give as the reason for that? Based on, you know, who I am and how that correlates to the clients like me that you deal with.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. So the reason you’re going to give, and the underlying reason is different. So the reason you’re going to give is going to be a practical reason, which is either I’ve met someone else, she’s met someone else. We’ve had a terrible fight and said things that we can’t take back. I had a spectacular failure financially, and she’s just bailing on me because she sees that the future’s really rocky, or she made some terrible decision and did something awful. That’s a betrayal that I can’t abide by.

But again, that’s the presenting reason. Underneath that is the bigger reason, which is we lost the plot. We lost the plot. Like, that’s the start of a chapter in a story. It’s the end of a chapter and the start of a chapter. That photo, like, the first chapter in that story was this person and this person wandering around on the same planet trying to figure it out, trying to figure out what they’re doing. And they have their origin story, and they have their complementary pathologies that developed over time.

And then, you know, they found each other, 8 billion people in the world, and somehow their paths intersected, you know, and they started to have this connection. And so there was the you and there was the me, and then there was the we. And that Venn diagram started right. And then you start to fill it with things. You fill it with people, you fill it with experiences.

And this is just a stop along the way. Like these two people. This is just a moment. It’s an incredible moment. It can be like Qumran. It can be like a moment that there was this and then everything after this. It’s a punctuation mark. Like, I like to say that life has punctuation marks. Like, you had a kid, you lost your job, you got a job, whatever. Those are punctuation marks. This is a big punctuation mark. And it will either be, you know, the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning. You get to write that. You get to write that chapter.

But this is a moment for me. The reason why this is a beautiful moment is this is a moment of tremendous optimism. This is a moment where the two of you said, you’re my favorite person, and I want to write this next chapter with you as having a different title in it. But really, like, the title’s just a symbol. The ring is just a symbol. It’s just a symbol of a commitment. It’s a symbol of a promise. And all the promise is is a symbol of intention. That’s all. It’s just an intention. Our intention is we’re not going to be alone anymore. We’re going to do this together.

And by the way, you’re already not alone. The fact that you got to this place, that you would ask this question, that’s a beautiful confirmation of the fact that you don’t feel alone.

STEVEN BARTLETT: We would have lost the plot.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, yeah, you would have lost the plot of the story. So this is a story. Where does this story go. Where do you want it to go? You want it to go to a future that features the two of you old together someday? Maybe it features children. Maybe it features companion animals.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And what is the most likely reason that we would lose the plot?

JAMES SEXTON: You stop paying attention. You stop doing what you’re currently doing. How did you get to this beautiful moment? You start doing the opposite. You got to this moment by paying attention. You got to this moment by making this a priority. You got to this moment by keeping this front of mind, by valuing, what is this but a symbol of you are valuable to me.

Why did you get on one knee? Why do you get on one knee? I mean, think about the symbols of all of this. We live in a world of symbols. Like the outfit I’m wearing. I’m saying something to you. I take this seriously. That’s why you wear a suit, is you wear a suit to say, I take this seriously. So why did you do this? What is this? A symbol. I’m down on one knee. Why? I’m humbling myself in front of you. I’m offering something to you. I’m hoping you will accept the gift I am giving to you. Like, there’s something very lovely about that symbol.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is this what you call slippage?

Understanding Slippage in Relationships

JAMES SEXTON: Slippage is exactly when you start to unintentionally, again, people rarely have slippage intentionally. It’s usually that, okay, we got that knocked out, now we can focus on the other stuff. And that’s slippage. Slippage is these small disconnections. Small disconnections that in of themselves mean nothing. Like no single raindrop’s responsible for the flood. That little raindrop, it’s just a little raindrop. That’s all it really is.

But slippage is this gradually increasing number of small disconnections that eventually leads to the giant marriage killer that you come in and say, here’s why we’re getting divorced. But it wasn’t that. It was all these little pieces. But at some point you were there.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you think people spot the slippage in the moment, but they don’t think it’s big enough to fight about or do something about?

JAMES SEXTON: 100%. And that’s the cognitive bias. That’s the fallacy that will keep me in business for the rest of my life. Because people just don’t want temporary discomfort like our desire for joy versus our aversion to pain. Our aversion to pain will win every single time. We know this. That’s why there was an opiate crisis more so than a cocaine crisis. Because one of those things is about making you feel really good. And the other is about getting rid of, like, the human desire.

Any scientist will tell you this. Ask our friend Andrew Huberman. Ask anybody. They will tell you the human desire to escape pain is the controlling aspect of self. So escaping pain, even discomfort. Even discomfort. And again, this is pushed by the narrative that love should be easy. If you’re going to make, if anything’s uncomfortable about it, you must be doing it wrong. Maybe you’re not with your soulmate. You know, it would be so easy and effortless. You’d always know what the other person wanted. You’d never have to tell them. They would know. They would know you well enough to know what it is that you need. And they would get you.

Even though, by the way, really, really, like, I’m 53 years old. I’ve been in therapy for 20 years. I get like 70% of this guy. I think, like, at best, like, and I’m in here. I’m in here, and I get about 70% of this guy. Like. And I’m supposed to get you 100%. Because we’re exchanging bodily fluids. Like, we’re. I’m supposed to just. Because we’ve slept in the same bed. I’m supposed to get you 100% and get ahead of stuff. Like, I get me 70%. And that’s with a lot of reflection.

So I really think that it’s wildly unfair for us to think that, you know, this should be effortless, this should be easy, and that it should never be uncomfortable. It’s okay to be like, I think because of what I do for a living, I have to tell people things they don’t want to hear all day because it’s true. And I tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. And you know, when clients say to me at the end of a consultation or conversation, like, oh, my God, I feel so much better, I always go, that’s great. That wasn’t my intention.

Because I don’t want anyone I talk to professionally to think I am telling you something to make you feel better. I’m not here to make you feel better. I’m not a therapist. I’m here to tell you the truth. And if the truth makes you feel better, great. If the truth makes you uncomfortable, at least you know the truth now. So I feel like in relationship again, if what you want most is lasting lifelong connection where we get each other as best we can, we can help each other navigate self and each other as best we can. And we cannot lose the plot of a story that is really beautiful right now.

Addressing Problems Before They Become Floods

STEVEN BARTLETT: So everybody listening can probably think about something in their relationship which has gotten a little bit worse since they first got into that relationship. And it could be the way that they argue is getting a little bit worse. They’re not listening as much. Maybe the tone has gone up or it’s getting a little bit more angry. Whatever it is in their relationship, what do they need to do now? It’s like, it’s not flooded yet, but…

JAMES SEXTON: Best time to look at it, best time to talk about it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: There’s a puddle.

JAMES SEXTON: So what I do for a living in court is I try to manipulate people’s emotional state. That’s my job. Like, my job is to go and make the judge, like, my client dislike the other side. I want the other side to feel scared. I want my client to feel safe. I want the court reporter who’s taking things down and the court officer to like me and to like my client. So that when we take a break in testimony and they go in the back with the judge, they go, I like Jim. He’s a really good lawyer. Or, oh, his client seems so nice. Or, boy, the other guy seems like a good. Or boy, that other lawyer’s a jerk.

Like, so I’m here manipulating people’s emotional state. That’s my job. Like, that’s what a trial lawyer does. We manipulate people’s emotional state. We play with the levers, right? So I say this as to say, we should be doing this in our relationships. There’s nothing nefarious about that. These are tools, and how you use them will give you a sense of whether it’s good or bad or whatever. Look, if what you are doing is to maintain connection, how you parse it is going to be everything.

So even the way you just said that, like, well, something’s kind of going wrong in the relationship. Okay, we’re already off to the wrong narrative. Because when someone tells you something’s been done wrong, there’s this automatic defensive response of, well, I didn’t mean to do it wrong. And, well, you know, it’s not my fault that I did it wrong. Like, it brings out something defensive in us rather than saying, something’s changed.

Have you noticed that something changed? Have you noticed that? Remember when we used to talk to each other about, you know, sometimes, like, and I don’t know if it’s something that I’ve done, and if it is, you know, I really would appreciate you telling me. But, like, when we have been fighting lately, like, the tone seems to have changed. Have you noticed that? Is it just me?

Now it’s a non-defensive dialogue. I’m not accusing you of something. I’m noting that something has changed. And by the way, good, we love each. Look at how much we love each other in that picture. Like, look at. Put the wedding photos up somewhere. Look at that moment. We were nuts about each other. In that moment, we were everything the other person ever wanted and more. So anytime something has changed from that. Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to know? And by the way, not in an accusatory fashion.

The most common one is we’re not having sex as much as we used to. We’re not having sex with you. We’re not having much sex. I’m not getting as much oral sex as I used to get. We’re not getting. Okay, there’s a way to say that, the way I just said it, that’s just going to blow up in your face. It’s not going to work because it’s, well, you haven’t been around as much. Well, I haven’t been around as much as I’m working so much. And I don’t see you spending less. Well, you know, honestly, if it comes down to that, I’d spend a lot to not have you treat me this way. Now we’re just having a fight.

Whereas if we say, like, remember how close? Remember when we went away? I was just thinking yesterday about when we went away that weekend. Remember we ended up not even leaving the room. It was so fun. I love when we’re like feeling that connected and close, you know, I feel like. I feel like lately sometimes, like we’re maybe not as connected and close. Like, and if there’s something I’m doing that’s making that, like, I really want to get it right. Like, I really want to get it right.

You know, there’s something about apologizing first, like having some humility in relationship that has tremendous value. Like when a lawyer, like, I’ll tell you one of my trade secrets. You know, my job is a very combative job sometimes. So there’s times where being very aggressive is the right move, but there’s times where being aggressive just doesn’t accomplish anything. And if I’m interacting with a lawyer for the first time, this is someone I haven’t had cases with. So we don’t know each other except by reputation. And they come at me really hard.

The first thing I’ll do is apologize. I’ll say, you know, I’m sorry, I just have to say, like, your tone, like, you’re coming at me like, it’s. If I said something in our initial interaction that made you feel like that I didn’t have respect for you or that, you know, I didn’t value your perspective or, like, I have a tendency to interrupt people sometimes. I have a tendency to. So if I offended you, I apologize. Because the way that you’re kind of talking to me, like, I feel like I must have said something wrong or I must have. So I apologize absolutely. If I did.

What is the. What choice do they have but to then go, oh, no, no, that’s. That’s just my tone. That’s just how I. Oh, yeah, of course. Okay. We all have a game face or thing. I just felt like, oh, my God, like, this guy’s coming at me so hard. Like I. I felt like I must have said something inadvertently or, you know, and then everyone’s kind of calmer now, you know.

So I think that this is a very easy way to invite discussion about these small preventative maintenance things without turning it into a whole. Like. Because we, again, we just think that, oh, if I bring that up, it’s going to turn into a whole thing. It doesn’t have to turn into a whole thing, period.

The Importance of Patience and Listening

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah. I think I asked that in part because I. It’s something that I. I’ve, like, subtly noticed that when we were. When we first met seven years ago, we were much more patient. And I’m like, I probably need to have a conversation about returning to being more patient. When we’re trying to solve problems, we kind of, like, rush through them now. And I just. I’m like, oh, you play this forward. You play this forward a decade or two decades. I’m like, damn, we’re really not going to be great at solving problems if we don’t just, like, slow down with them.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And a lot of that just means, like, listening to the other person’s point of view a bit more intently.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. And that’s hard. That’s hard because, you know, your brain moves quickly. Like, it’s something I struggle with in relationship, for sure. Like, any kind of relationship is. I’m very like, all right, come on, we got to land this plane. Like, let’s go. Like, skip to the end. Time is money. Like, what are we. What are we doing? Where are we going with this? Like, and I. I’m terrible at it. I interrupt people constantly. Like, I’m not good at that. And it’s something I’m working on. Because I think I know what they have to say next. And I’m wrong. A lot of the time, especially in relationship, I’m wrong.

It’s not a popular opinion to say that men and women are different, but men and women are different. And I don’t say that to say one is superior and one is inferior. I say that to say that we’re different. We navigate things differently, we experience life differently, we’re treated differently from a societal standpoint. We’ve had different life experiences. And I genuinely believe that it would be very valuable for us in relationship to sort of think, hey, I don’t really know everything about how this person is wired.

It took me fully 40 some odd years, if not 50, to figure out that if I’m in a romantic relationship with a woman and she comes home and starts telling me about something that’s upsetting to her, that she doesn’t want what my male friends want. Like if I called a buddy of mine, if I called you, I’ve called you before. If I called you and I said, Steven, I’m having this problem, man. I’m dealing with one of my sons and he’s doing X Wednesday. If you went, that must be very hard, Jim, I’d be like, yes, it is, Steven. That’s why I called you. Do you have any suggestions? Like, what do you think I should do here? Like, you’re a smart guy. I called you, I wanted you to help me.

Very often that is the opposite. Most women want you to hear them, give them some support. You guys could have this conversation. A couple can have this conversation. You can say, hey, listen, right now, in this moment, you’re not coming to me with a problem. But when you come to me with a problem, my natural proclivity is to start throwing solutions. And I’ve learned, or I heard Sexton say on Steven’s show that maybe that’s not the best way. Do you find that’s true? Do you want me to? Maybe when you say these things, could I. Because again, this is a job. I want to be good at this job. Why is it wrong for me to ask you how can I be better at this job?

Understanding Your Partner’s Needs

STEVEN BARTLETT: I found it really useful to state explicitly to my fiancé what my needs are in those situations. And again, it didn’t come naturally to her. And vice versa, it didn’t. What she needs from me in those situations is the opposite of what I need from her in those situations.

I’m thinking, particularly when she’s going through something and she’s struggling with something. She wants me to be present, and she often wants some advice on it. And her advice is the opposite of mine often. And in the inverse, when I’m going through those situations, I actually don’t want to talk about it at all. I just wanted to be there.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But she wants to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it.

JAMES SEXTON: But what would be wrong with saying in that moment, I’ve got a menu. I’ve got a menu for you. Can you tell me which one you want? Because just like you said, you’re hungry. And I said, what are you hungry for? You want sushi? Do you want me to make you something? Do you want some cheese toast? Do you want us to go out someplace and we can get burgers? What is it you want? Right?

Couldn’t you just say, hey, I’ve got a menu? I can just listen and tell you I love you and just be here. I can give you some solutions and how I might handle the problem. I can try to distract you and tell you a funny story about something that happened to me today, or I can pick you up and tickle you. We can go in the other room and roll around in the sheets for a little while and take your mind off it, and then we can figure out which of the other options you might want. We can go for a walk together and we can talk about it or not talk about it. What would you like on the menu?

Because I’m serving all of those things for you. Which one would you like? And the worst thing she could say is, I don’t know. And then you go, okay, then I’m going to pick one. I’m going to pick one, and if it feels good, great. And if it doesn’t, you’ll tell me. Okay. And I won’t be offended. Like, again, what’d that take, Steven? 30 seconds? 30 seconds. Throw that out there. Instead of just blindly throwing darts at the target, not knowing where the target is.

The Most Important Relationship Ritual

STEVEN BARTLETT: If you had to give everybody listening one relationship ritual that you would think would most increase the probability that they stay together, stay in love, what would that relationship ritual be?

JAMES SEXTON: I think that once a week, you should make a specific task of telling your partner three things that you really like about them, and every week it should be something different. I think you should tell your partner, if you really want to take the advanced edition of this, do you want to turn it from a 30 second task into a whole five minutes that you devote to your relationship?

You know, I feel about relationship maintenance the way that if you’ve ever heard this story, I think the Dalai Lama is the one credited with saying it, that a high end executive paid a colossal amount of money to have a private audience with the Dalai Lama. And the Dalai Lama said to him, you know, if you’re searching for inner peace, you should meditate for 15 minutes a day. And the executive said, I don’t have 15 minutes a day to meditate. And he said, then you should meditate for an hour a day.

I feel the same way. If you don’t have five minutes a week to devote to your spouse or partner, then you’re going to need hours. I think you should actually set aside hours, like five minutes a week. I would suggest the following exact, just systematic, basic thing. This is what my next book is about. It’s about a systematic approach to being good at love.

And the idea is once a week, I think, here’s the advanced version, but minimum, just write down, send an email, send a text, whatever it is. Tell your partner three things that you love about them. The advanced version is tell your partner three things you love about them. Tell them three times this week that they made you feel loved. Here’s three things you did this week that made me feel loved. Like, here’s three. When you sent me that message and said that made me feel so soft, that made me feel very loved. Like, whatever it is, I’m sure you could find off the top of your head three things that she did this week that made you feel loved. And it’s only Monday.

Why People Resist Simple Relationship Practices

STEVEN BARTLETT: People at home are in relationships right now. They’re hearing you say that and some of them are still not going to do it. Why do you think they’re not going to do it? Like, what is that mental conversation they’re having where they go, I think we’re…

JAMES SEXTON: Well, I think we’re, I think they think it’s pointless. I think they might be at a point in their relationship where it feels like, what would be the point? We’re so far gone, it wouldn’t help. I think more than anything, my real feeling on this, the secret that I don’t think people want to say out loud. I think we’re terrified. I think we’re terrified.

And I think what we’re terrified of is not the future of our relationship. I think what we’re terrified of is that we feel like we’re not worthy of love. I think it’s most people’s fundamental terror. I think most people’s fundamental fear is that if you knew me you wouldn’t love me. If you could see me, the real me, like the me that’s in here. All the weakness, all the fear, all the horrible, selfish thoughts, all the perversity, all the darkest things that are inside of me and every single one of us. That if you saw that, you couldn’t possibly love me.

And the feeling that comes with that, which is, so you love the character I’m playing. That’s not showing you all those things. I’m just showing you the best parts of myself. If you saw the real me, you wouldn’t really love me. I think our greatest fear is that we’re not worthy of love.

And I think that there’s a part of us that’s afraid to poke at, what do you love about me? What do I love about you? What am I getting wrong again? Like finishing that exercise, you know, here’s some things. Here’s three things I love about you. Here’s three things you did this week that made me feel loved. Here’s three things I could have done better or tell me three things I could have done better or tell your partner three things they could have done better. And then if you want to have a fun one thrown in there, because I think you should end on fun stuff, here’s three things you did this week that made me want to have sex with you.

Overcoming Resistance to Intimacy

STEVEN BARTLETT: I guess some people are listening right now and they’re thinking, well, you know, I’m dating Barry. Or they’re thinking, I’m dating Joanne. And she is not verbally intimate in this way. She would, if I suggested this to her…

JAMES SEXTON: Write it down. Don’t do it. You don’t have to do it verbally. I think verbally is too much pressure on people.

STEVEN BARTLETT: But even written down, if I told Dave that we’re going to start writing these notes to each other about three things I love, he’s going to cringe and he’s…

JAMES SEXTON: Bullshit. Bullshit. Honestly, really, that’s too hard. It’s too much of an ask. Like Dave, I don’t care what Dave does for a living. Dave could be a ditch digger for a living who’s not articulate in any way. Dave is moving in with you. Dave married you. Dave went out and put his money on the counter and bought a ring. Dave can’t name three things he likes about you. Really? Dave? Is that a big ask? Is that hard? Dave, like, come on. I absolutely call bullshit. Maybe he doesn’t want to. Okay, that’s a different conversation. Why don’t you want to? What’s uncomfortable about that for you?

STEVEN BARTLETT: It is uncomfortable for some people, isn’t it?

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, it’s very uncomfortable for some people.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s quite interesting that you could be in a loving relationship with someone, but also be at some deeper level, scared of intimacy. And I’ll be honest, because it’s just me and you, nobody’s listening.

JAMES SEXTON: Sure. Of course.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Attorney client privilege. Yeah, I think at some level I’ve always been scared of intimacy. Makes it sound more conscious than it is. But at some deeper level, I’ve always been, I don’t know, a bit disconnected intimately. When it comes to being able to articulate these things.

JAMES SEXTON: Keep it simple. That’s why I want to keep that simple. I didn’t say, what is your love for me rooted in? And what is the nature of our connection and how does it fit into the broader context? Like, I had a very challenging relationship with my mother growing, and I feel like you fill some of the wounds that, whoa, guys, we don’t need. Like, Sigmund Freud doesn’t have to show up in the relationship.

What are three, we could do it right now in this relationship. What are three things I like about you? What are three experiences you and I have had with each other that made each other laugh? Like, we have a friendship. Like, what a joy that is, by the way. Like, what a joy it is to sit across from someone and say, you know what I like about you? Shit, man, I want to hear that list. Like, that’s lovely.

Attachment Styles and Emotional Fitness

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you think the whole idea of people being avoidant and sort of anxious, you know, this attachment style theory stuff, does that stuff track to what you’ve seen?

JAMES SEXTON: It does. But, you know, I also think too, like, I don’t understand why we treat our connections to other people differently than things we are. Like, exercise. Okay. Haven’t been to the gym in a while. You go to the gym, you’re going to be sore. You’re not going to be able to lift a lot. You’re going to have to start slow, and for a couple days, you’re going to be sore. And if you go, ooh, I was very sore after that. I’m not going back to the gym. Okay, then you’re never going to get fit, and you’re never going to get past the sore stage.

Because if you go, I’ll wait a month and then I’ll go back and do the same thing again. Guess what? You’re just going to, you have to move through the uncomfortable part to get to the part where it starts to feel really good. And you’re not as sore. Yeah, you’ll sometimes still be sore you push it a little too hard. Maybe worked out with Huberman that week. But you know what? Other weeks you go, hey, I don’t feel sore. I just feel strong and healthy.

So there’s going to be moments where this might feel a little weird, it might feel a little awkward, it might feel a little sore. There might be weeks where that kind of a simple little practice feels a little like, oh, it feels a little uncomfortable. Or you have a list of things that you did this week that made me feel loved. I have to reach for it. Okay, great. Isn’t that little uncomfortable conversation that might prevent slippage? Isn’t that little conversation better than the long term impact of having a distance start growing between the two of you that eventually becomes impossible to navigate because it becomes a chasm between the two of you?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you think the attachment style theory has any truth to it? From what you’ve seen, do you tend to find people are, you know, there’s some people that are avoidant of intimacy, there’s some people that are anxious, there’s some people in the middle.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. I mean, look, I think that we’re all creatures of our upbringing and I think a lot of our, I’m amazed as a 53 year old man in therapy how often a lot of my challenges are rooted in seven year old Jim.

STEVEN BARTLETT: As a man that talks so much about love, I’m curious to know what it is that you still struggle with in terms of, you know. Because I mean, I know from my own experience that I can know every, I can know so much. I sit here with experts all day, every day. It’s not like I don’t know this stuff. Yeah, but then putting it into practice is a different task.

The Challenge of Asking for Help

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, I mean, it’s why you’ll never hear me use myself in my relationships as an example. Because I think you can be an incredibly skilled person at the theory of something and then in its practical application you have your own unique challenges. I think that using yourself as the example and your relationships as an example is dangerous because I learned it in my own professional life when I had a very friendly divorce.

And so my experience of divorce is the unique function of the constitution of my ex-wife and of me and of our unique circumstances that brought us where we are. So if I use that as the basis for my analysis of things, I think it’s a very shallow sample size.

I know for me, my greatest challenge in every relationship I’ve ever had, but even in my professional relationships, is acknowledging when I need help. I think because I was raised in an environment where a lot of my needs weren’t met. My father was a very serious alcoholic. My mother was trying to tend to a very serious alcoholic.

When I needed something, even from a very young age, I felt a lot of shame because it wasn’t met with, “I’m hungry for breakfast.” “Of course, let me make you some breakfast.” It was met with, “What, you can’t make your own breakfast? What’s wrong with you?” And I said, it was this guy. Yeah, yeah, that was me. That was me. My Bruce Lee poster and my… It was Chuck Norris up there. Yeah. This is probably like nine, nine years old. Okinawan Goju Ryu Karate. This is my room.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

JAMES SEXTON: I was very, very lonely. I was really lonely. I was really sad. And I loved martial arts because there was this very clear kind of masculinity on display. Like this protective, strong superpower that you could build. It wasn’t just gifted to you. Like you didn’t win the genetic lottery. Like you could, through discipline and practice, you could have this superpower that would make you feel safe. And that was what I obsessed about having.

There’s still a lot of that person, that young man still in me that is afraid to ask for help. I wanted to be someone who I could do it all for myself. And I wish I could say, looking back, that it was because that was my natural proclivity is to want to be very self-actualized. But it really was that I was just absolutely sad and terrified that if I asked, I’d be shamed if I said, “Could you be nice to me?” that the answer would be no.

So I learned how to do everything. Like, I cook amazingly well. Like, I’m good at a lot of things. I’m good at most things. Almost anything I put my mind to, I’m good at. But it took me a lot of years to figure out that although that has served me really well and it’s built my career and the security and safety that came with being so successful and having financial success and now some level of notoriety, it took me a long time to figure out that that also has been the greatest obstacle in my life.

And I’m learning at the age of 53 that this guy is like, he’s still there and talking to me all the time. And I’ve learned now again through my own therapy to say to him, “Oh, I hear you. Like, I hear you. I’m glad you’re still there. Like, you don’t have to be so scared anymore.” I’m not. I’m grateful to him. I think that’s the best thing to aspire to, is to make peace with that.

Like, I’m sure in you there is some little boy, like, hiding in some part of his room, feeling very lost and very lonely. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong or weak or not masculine or not strong about acknowledging that that’s still a voice in your head and acknowledging that that voice in your head, like, it brought you where you are, but it also held you back in some ways.

And you’re never going to get rid of it. But maybe what you’ll do is hear it for what it is, which is it’s a voice that was once there, really important to save you, and it did a really good job of that. But that it’s okay. Like, it’s okay. You don’t have to beat that out of you, but you don’t have to listen to it either. You don’t have to let it drive the car.

Learning from Our Younger Selves

STEVEN BARTLETT: I was thinking, as you were speaking about how those of us that… Do you want me to take this photo back?

JAMES SEXTON: Oh, whichever. It’s great. It’s fun to see that guy. It’s funny that you pulled that out. I have to tell you. It’s a lovely thing. I think there’s something to learn from those versions of ourself. Like, if you hang out with kids, you just see, like, they don’t have all that hate in their heart. They hate naps. It’s the end of the list. Like everything else. Like, they just want to, like, love each other and hug each other and play.

And when they think they hurt someone, they stop. And they’re very scared because they didn’t mean to. And then we turn into these creatures that are just attacking each other all the time, you know? And I think at the end of the day, like, all we want is that, like, all we want is to just be like, that warm, open version of ourselves before the world beat the s* out of us.

And maybe that’s what love’s supposed to be like. Maybe what love is is an opportunity for us to, like, reconnect to that part of ourselves that was just so simple. Like, I just want you to love me. I want to be loved by you. I want you to feel worthy of my love. I want to feel worthy of yours. Like, why does it have to be so hard?

Independence Versus Connection

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I was thinking about how there’s a lot of people that at a very early age had to be very independent for whatever reason, maybe a parent wasn’t around. Maybe in your case, you know, I’ve heard, you know, doing this podcast, you get a bit of pattern recognition where you sometimes think, “Oh, okay, so if one of the parents was an alcoholic, adult children of alcoholics were…”

JAMES SEXTON: I remember reading the book Recovery: Adult Children of Alcoholics. I stumbled on it when I was in college at a bookstore. And I remember reading it and going, “They’ve been reading my diary. Like, what the holy…” Because there was this profile of, like, one of the types, one of the archetypes of adult children of alcoholics is that you… Yeah. Control, control, control, control. Like wanting to control everything.

Because life feels so chaotic when you live with an alcoholic. When the person who is supposed to be your primary caregiver and the primary mechanism for you to feel safe feels unpredictable and chaotic. And that is… It creates in you this constant sense of a heightened, you know, heightened sense of I need to hold on as tight as I can.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And also that drove you to be incredibly independent. Yeah. Independence and connection seem to be on, like, two ends of the spectrum. And I say this in part because I look at all my friends that are very, very, very independent. And I would say that they typically struggle the most to form relationships because they’ve kind of built their own castle with a moat.

And generally, if we zoom out on this point of independence and dependency, I would say that the narrative in society over the last, I don’t know, 10, 20 years or whatever has been pointed at glorifying independence and not dependency. Dependency is like not cool. It’s like, be your own boss, start your own business, stand on your own two feet.

Two Warring Forces

JAMES SEXTON: So I used to view, I would say the defining characteristics of my 30s and 40s was the belief that there were two versions of Jim Sexton. One was the one that was the most forward-facing at that time, which was lead pipe cruelty and mercenary sensibility. Like, I’m going to do this job, I’m going to do it really well. I’m going to get better and better at it. I’m going to just take my skill set and weaponize it and that’s who I’m going to be.

And then there was this other part of me that was always there. I kind of stuffed it in the closet for a while that, like, gets misty-eyed when I talk about love and cries when I think about dogs and, you know, watches Love on the Spectrum and can’t make it through an episode without weeping three or four times. Like this very soft, gentle, loving, compassionate, empathetic, sensitive part of me.

And I felt like they were two warring forces. There were two versions of me. And the question was, how can I be that soft little, you know, wuss out of me and be the final form, which is like the me that’s a machine that can just do it, like, that can just do what needs to be done and do it in a way that nobody else can do.

And I’m very blessed that I am, in my line of work, what Yo-Yo Ma is in cello. Like in a courtroom, I have a God-given talent. And I remember thinking, “Okay, that’s the final form of me as a master in the courtroom. And everything else is just what do I need to do to get there.”

I remember my ex-wife saying to me, “You know, you will never love any woman as much as you love the law. Like, every woman who you ever meet for the rest of your life will be playing second fiddle to how much you love being in a courtroom. You’re great in a courtroom and you have no idea what to do in your living room. Like in your living room, you’re just totally paralyzed. Whereas in a courtroom, you know, every…” It has defined rules. It has a cadence. I know what the goal is like. I know exactly. It’s controlled chaos. I’m great at it.

So there was a part of me that went, “Okay, there’s this soft, warm, wonderful, lovely, empathetic side of me. And then there’s this real successful.” And that’s the one that got me everywhere. That’s the one that got me everything I have. So I have to figure out how to get rid of this one and keep this one.

And for my entire 30s and most of my 40s, that was my primary thing, was trying to figure out how to get rid of that part of me. And no matter how loudly I blared Nine Inch Nails on my headphones and tried to become a machine, I couldn’t get rid of that part of me.

And then I came to realize, I think in part because of this work, I think because of, like, somehow I stumbled into being in a position where I end up talking about feelings a whole lot. And it’s… Somehow I got brought in to have… Here’s this interesting divorce lawyer who’s going to talk about divorce stuff. And somehow I ended up talking a lot about love and softness and warmth and compassion.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I didn’t think it somehow.

# The Authentic Self and Masculine Rigidity

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, no, exactly. And what I came to learn from that, from giving that voice, is that there actually isn’t two warring forces. It’s two very authentic aspects of self that have to exist inside of me. And each one of them creates the other in some ways.

Like, I don’t think I’d be anywhere near as good of a lawyer and courtroom advocate if I didn’t have a tremendous sensitivity and empathy and couldn’t put myself in the heads of the various people in the room. So I think that when we start to see what seems like opposite traits in us instead as authentic representations of aspects of who we are, that we have to learn how to do. Let them dance. Let them move together in some way.

And there’s times where this guy should take the lead, and there’s times where that very focused self that is very mission driven, that person should lead. And for men in particular, we’ve been taught a rigidity. The gender role for men has a tremendous rigidity. I mean, I grew up in a time where you either got to be Clint Eastwood or Richard Simmons. Those were your two choices. You either had to be icy 100% or you had to be, you know, you could be warm and fuzzy, but then you were just not really masculine.

And I just don’t think that’s the case. Like, you look at, like, I’ve spent 20 years on the Brazilian jiu jitsu mat. I have to tell you, like, there’s some dudes could snap your neck with, like, any, with their thumb, and they’re some of the warmest, most lovely people because these are all authentic aspects of self. And to know that, like, the soft, warm version of me feeding it, letting it spend some time, letting it be in conversation, it makes me better at the other part. It makes me more authentic. It makes me better at that part.

And by the way, letting that part out, it hasn’t done anything to diminish this part. So when you start to see it that way, I really think that there’s a tremendous broader menu of possibilities out there.

When Love Doesn’t Work

STEVEN BARTLETT: I’ve got several friends in my life that have really struggled with relationships and love. And for those people that have really, really struggled in love, and they look around at everybody else, and everybody else seems to have worked it out or at least be working through a situation, but they look at themselves and go, it just doesn’t work for me. What’s going on? Why am I the only one in my friendship group that hasn’t found love or isn’t in a relationship and they kind of beat themselves up about it?

JAMES SEXTON: I think that’s a great starting point. Why is this happening to me? And start looking at when did it start happening and what’s the consistent thread through all of it? And are there people that I could ask that question of who know me and love me and would be willing to tell me honestly? And if there aren’t, great. What are some resources out there in terms of the wisdom of other people that might share that experience?

I think there’s so many entry points to that conversation with yourself. I think the start is to identify that, yeah, I’m drowning. What the solution is not, is to pretend everything’s fine. And that’s the ecosystem we’ve created. We’re living our gag reel and watching everyone’s greatest hits. And we’re encouraged all day long to tell everyone how great we’re doing and how we’re crushing it and how great we feel and how focused we are.

Because why? Because we’re terrified that if we said, I don’t know, I feel like I’m drowning. I feel like I’m drowning. Sometimes I have moments where I feel so put together, and then I have moments where I think I’m drowning. And by the way, when people have that kind of honesty, there’s something so beautiful about it.

Like, I have to tell you, like, one of the things that people say about me when I go, I don’t understand why anything I’m saying resonates with anybody. People are like, dude, you’re so real. It’s so real. It’s so blunt and honest and, like, real. This is, it’s in every one of us is that same realness, that same basic, just, all it is is just saying out loud, like, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. Like, I don’t have it all figured out.

And that’s okay because I have some things really figured out. So maybe if I’ve got these things really figured out and you’ve got these other things really figured out, and we just stop bullshitting each other for five minutes and instead go, you know, I’m doing great on this. But like this, I feel like I’m a train wreck on, like, every high achieving friend I have, every celebrity friend I have, every, I have friends who, people look at them and go, oh, dude, he is murdering it.

Like, you’re my friend. People look at you, they go, he’s murdering it. There are aspects of your life that you’re like, I got to work on that. There’s tons of aspects of my life where I go, I got to work on that. Like, I figured all these other things out, but I haven’t figured that out yet. And you know what? It’s so lovely to have that conversation.

Like, why can’t we just make some space for that, all of us a little bit more? I don’t think it’s that hard. It’s at least as important as our workout routine. It’s at least as important as remembering someone’s birthday.

Prioritizing Connection

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah. I wonder why it is that we, there’s so little space for us to work on our connection challenges these days.

JAMES SEXTON: It hasn’t been prioritized. We become what we behold. We prioritize what we’ve been told to prioritize. We’ve been told to prioritize conspicuous consumption. We’ve been taught that the measure of a person is how much financial success they have.

That’s why I genuinely believe that if we continue to barrel along using the metric of success being financial above all else, really consumption, what we own, what we wear, what we have, or how we look, right, as the priority, we’re barreling towards nothing. Whereas if we were to change that and say, hey, like, joy, peace, finding some peace within ourselves, finding some balance that feels right to us individually.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I think that’s a really good, simple word which people don’t think about enough when they’re thinking about the KPIs of success in their life, which is how do I feel? And I think we’ve all grown up in different contexts learning to tune out of how I feel. And in its place, put how does the world feel about me? As like the primary metric.

And it’s like I was thinking the other day that actually, you know, we can go do all these podcasts and books and whatever else, but we were all born with this sort of internal compass that tells you every day how you feel. But like, none of us tune into it.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And actually the metric becomes like, how many followers do you have? How rich are you?

Learning to Feel

JAMES SEXTON: It’s beaten out of us by the world. Like, I will tell you, you always get the most emotional stuff out of me, Steven. I will tell you my most shameful moment as a parent. So I have two sons. They’re 26 and 28. 28 year old just got married in September. He’s a lawyer. He’s awesome.

He must have been five or six and something happened, like, and he was, he started crying, like someone hurt his feelings or something happened. But it wasn’t, I don’t know, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Like, it to me at the moment. I mean, I was in my 20s. He was 24 when I was 24 when he was born. So, yeah, I was in my 20s and he was crying and he was crying and like, I wanted him to stop crying because it made me sad to see him cry.

Like, I love him so much like that I was like, it made me so uncomfortable to see him crying. And I remember I like, I grabbed him. Not roughly, I grabbed him. And I just looked at him and I was like, control yourself. I’m like, control yourself. I’m like, calm down and control yourself. And I remember, like, he managed to do it.

It’s 20 something years later. And I’m ashamed of that moment because I understand what I was trying to say to him. Like, I was trying to say to him, I don’t want you to be in pain. Like, I’m uncomfortable with your pain. I also wanted to, I wanted to say something to this guy, probably, which is like, dude, the world’s not going to be nice to you if it knows that you have all these feelings. Like, you got to find a way to hide it. There’s so much going on in that moment.

But, like, I look back on that moment and I just think, like, no, like, that was the wrong thing to do. Like, it was the wrong thing to do. Like, I don’t think we should be telling people, not just boys, like, boys particularly, maybe, but I don’t think we should be telling people, like, control yourself. Like, feeling so much.

Like, I think, I think there’s a difference between trying to, like, get people to control their feelings and not letting, like, everything be governed by the transient feelings that you have from moment to moment. And I think it’s a harder, more subtle message. But, like, I think if we lead with the feelings, if we lean into the feelings first, we identify the feelings first, if we figure out what it is we want to feel, we want the other person to feel to bring it back to marriage, to bring it back to connection.

What were the questions I was asking earlier that exercise? When did I make you feel loved this week? Here’s some things you did that made me feel loved this week. Here’s some things that made me feel desire towards you this week. Here’s some things you did this week that made me feel less than loved by you or that made me feel less connected to you.

Like what? Maybe we just need to help each other learn how to identify our feelings and feel our feelings. Like, maybe we’d need more Mr. Rogers and less, you know, intense self help. Like, maybe we just need more help not trying to control our feelings, but just figure out what they are and feel them.

Addiction and Distraction

STEVEN BARTLETT: I think, you know, a lot of us are distracting ourselves as a way to avoid feeling anything. Because even I was thinking about, like, a practical way for you to get back in touch with actually how you’re feeling. And every solution I came up with was, like, interrupted by doomsday.

JAMES SEXTON: Well, the best definition of addiction I’ve ever heard was from a therapist, Dave Klugman, who said to me, addiction is anything you do to get away from feeling what you would have felt if you’d done nothing at all. And I’ve always said to people, work is my favorite narcotic.

Like, if you look at the most productive times in my life, they were almost always when something awful was happening in my personal life. Either I was getting divorced, my mother was dying, some painful thing was happening. So I took tremendous comfort in feeling in control and competent, which is how I feel at work. So the more I’m working is usually a gauge of where there are aspects of my life that I don’t want to feel certain things.

And again, that’s why I think that the best question to ask at the start of therapy, the only question really is, what is it I’m afraid to feel?

Why Take Love Seriously

STEVEN BARTLETT: I think because we’re closing off on this section where we were talking about people who have struggled in love, it is probably worth just closing the section by giving them a why as to, like, the, the reason why they should take love seriously and stop distracting themselves and stop avoiding it and stop avoiding going to therapy, brushing it under the carpet.

Like, what is, what is the why there? Why should they take love seriously? Because they could continue to, you know, bomb on for the next 10, 20 years and become really professionally accomplished and, you know, get rich. Nice house, nice holidays.

The Value of Love and Connection

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. Those are all great things. Those are all worthy pursuits. I think when you look back on your life, whatever stage of your life you’re in, most people will recall a moment where they felt loved or where they felt tremendous love as the highest points of their life.

I think even celebrity, and I represent a lot of celebrities, and now, like you, I’ve had a little taste of it. That’s really just the praise of strangers. It’s like the love of strangers, which is lovely. It’s lovely. It’s like NutraSweet. It’s sweet. It’s not sugar, but it’s sweet. Like, feels good to have strangers adore you. It’s lovely, you know, but is it the same as having someone who genuinely knows you and has a history with you and really loves you?

Like, I think all of us know, if we’re honest, that when we look back on our life at the moments where we felt the most glad that we’re here, it was usually something that we felt that made us feel loved or that we got to feel love towards someone else, or ideally a combination of the two.

So I think romantic love is a great opportunity. And you don’t have to be someone who’s religious and therefore believes that marriage is a sacrament that you’re called to for the purpose of creating children. You don’t have to be someone who believes that, you know, marriage is good for society and therefore that’s why we have to do it, is if you love America or you love the UK, you have to do this for the country.

It really can just be to look inside your own experience as a human being and look inside your own feelings and say, okay, when have I felt truly loved? When have I felt love? And were those the highest moments in my life? Were those the best moments in my life? A lot of those other things that you just described, like holiday, it’s usually not by yourself, it’s usually with other people, it’s usually with someone. Even if it’s transient love, it’s some kind of connection to another person.

So the bigger question is, is the unique form of love that comes with a pair bond, right? You find one person and you make that person your person. Like, is that the permutation that works for you? And I think there are a lot of people who try at that and fail. The majority of people try at that and fail. Is the solution to that to give up on it? I don’t think so. I think the solution to it is to figure out when it works. Because when it works, it’s so good, right?

Talk to anybody who’s really had a great, successful, long term relationship again, even if it eventually ends, even if, you know, happily ever after means happily ever after separately, if you had 10, 20 years of your life where you felt deep, wonderful, intimate connection with another person and great sexual satisfaction and all kinds of other things, like, you know, at best, right, like you’re getting married, okay? And if you have a monogamous marriage, I would like to think that you will sleep with as many women as you want to, which will be one, and she will sleep with as many men as she wants to, which will be one.

Because when I’m full, I’m not hungry, I don’t need more to eat. Like when I’m satisfied, I don’t need more. Like if the goal of a monogamous marriage, if the goal of a traditional marriage is that we’re going to say to each other, hey, you and I, we’re going to share space, we’re going to share a journey together, we’re going to play a very important role in each other’s lives. We’re going to add to that. There’s this romantic and sexual component which makes it something other than a friendship.

And most marriages, you’re saying we’re going to only share that aspect of self with each other. Okay. So if that’s what you want and what comes from that is, you know, something you want to feel. And that is, I want to feel deeply connected. I want to feel the connection that gets deeper and deeper. I want to feel safe in this relationship emotionally, physically. I want to feel safe in it.

Like, I just think that there’s tremendous value in saying that out loud to each other from the beginning and saying to each other, what can we do if we both have decided this is something we’re going to do? We don’t have to do it, but we’re going to do it. How can we keep this thing lovely and connected? And I think the answer really is not that complicated.

The Case for Prenuptial Agreements

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you think prenups help marriages last?

JAMES SEXTON: Yes.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You’re saying that as a divorce lawyer who gets paid to rape them?

JAMES SEXTON: No. Because it’s the least profitable thing we do.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Oh, okay.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. Prenups are so easy. Like they’re, you know, they’re really like, to the point now where they’re essentially automated. Like, I see a future where AI is just going to do them. Like, it’s really not that tricky.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Do you think I should get a prenup?

JAMES SEXTON: Yes, of course.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Why do you think I should get a prenup?

JAMES SEXTON: You have a prenup. It’ll either be written by the state legislature or it’ll be written by you and she. Who do you trust more? You’ve been to the DMV. Have you walked into the DMV and went, oh, these people are great, they should be in charge of everything. I mean, you know what? They should make the rules for our marriage.

And by the way, even though this legislature changes constantly, like whoever you are, whatever your political views are in the last 20 years, at some point you’ve gone, I cannot believe who’s in charge here. I cannot believe who’s in charge of the government. Whatever side of the aisle you’re on.

So what you’re saying, because your marriage has a prenup, you get married, you’ve got a prenup. You’re saying, I trust the legislature of the state in which we will be residing in the future in the event we break up more than I trust my partner who I’ve chosen out of 8 billion options.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I imagine a lot of people listening would be scared to mention a prenup to their partner.

JAMES SEXTON: And those people in particular, by the way, it’s just like I said about, you know, I don’t have 15 minutes a day to meditate. Great, then you need an hour. If you’d be scared to mention a prenup to your partner, then you should definitely mention a prenup to your partner. Because what that means is I’m afraid to have a hard conversation with my partner. And if you’re going to get married, you should get accustomed to having hard conversations. Life is going to come at you very fast and there’s going to be lots of things that happen that require hard conversations.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What if my partner says no?

JAMES SEXTON: Says no to the prenup?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

JAMES SEXTON: Have a conversation about why.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And they say, you don’t trust me. Like you think I’m going to take your stuff. This is not very sexy.

JAMES SEXTON: Well, arguably you don’t trust me equally. Right. Because that trust works both ways. So what you’re saying when you say you don’t trust me is you’re saying that you don’t trust that this marriage is going to last or you don’t trust. You’re saying you don’t trust that in the event this marriage ends, we won’t be fair to each other. Right.

So why would you marry someone who you don’t believe that they’re going to be fair to you? You’re not protecting yourselves against each other. You’re protecting yourselves against the government making the rule set in the event that your marriage ends in something other than death.

STEVEN BARTLETT: You know, I’ve got a friend. There’s two people that convinced me that I should get a prenup. One of them was you.

JAMES SEXTON: Thanks.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And then the other was watching a friend go through divorce. And he said to me, actually, when we went for dinner one time that it was. Do you know what it was? It was looking at his face and seeing the depression in his face from the process because not only had it ruined his relationship with his ex-wife because they’ve gone through this onslaught for seven years where two sets of lawyers were fighting either side. He said that he’d paid for her lawyer, which he has to do, which I wasn’t aware of.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, there’s a presumption that the higher earning individual should be responsible for the reasonable legal fees of the less earning spouse.

STEVEN BARTLETT: He said her lawyer has now got like a skyscraper. Whereas when this divorce started, he was in a small little office. Now he’s got like some massive building because he’s had to spend tens of millions on her lawyers.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, I’ve had clients who’ve paid millions.

STEVEN BARTLETT: The other thing he said was that her lawyer is trying to inflate his assets to tell the judge that his business is worth billions of dollars.

The Battle of Expert Valuations

JAMES SEXTON: Now I know why this divorce is taking so long. They’re dueling experts. So instead of the two lawyers hiring a neutral expert to value his business interests, what they’ve elected to do instead is to hire individual partisan experts. And that happens sometimes.

And when you hire an individual partisan expert, of course you’re going to, you know, if you represent the party who wants half of this thing, you’re going to find someone. The cigarette companies had doctors who were willing to testify that cigarettes are good for you. Like, you can find an expert to say almost anything if you pay them enough.

So you find credible experts that will overly value the business, and then because value is speculative. And then the other side has an incentive to hire experts who will deliberately diminish the value of the business. And then you have two opportunities. One is you can play with the data set and you can impeach the data set. And then the other is you can impeach the conclusion that came from the data set.

So you can say you used the wrong data and that’s how you got to the wrong conclusion, or you can say use the right data, but you came to the wrong conclusion or some combination of both. Like, this is the s* I get to do all day in a courtroom is to, like, try to engineer those optics or prevent those optics from being engineered in that direction and say that.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I was going through a divorce now with my partner. My wife would. Well, her lawyer would theoretically be trying to say that this podcast is worth a billion dollars.

JAMES SEXTON: Because then theoretically, she’s entitled to a larger percentage.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah, she might be entitled to 500 million. And if the judge believes that this podcast is worth a billion, I need to find a way to pay her 500 million.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Even if I don’t have it.

JAMES SEXTON: It can be paid over time. It’s what’s called a distributive award. It can be paid over an extended period of time.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And my lawyer’s going to be trying to argue that this is worth nothing.

JAMES SEXTON: Nothing. It’s absolutely effortless. It’s worth nothing. You should have negative contingency discounts. A key man discount. Lack of discount for marketability. There’s. Yeah, this is all I do all day. This is the gig.

And see, you know why you want a prenup is because, God forbid, for both of you, that happens. Like, you’re going to pay me. I get $1,000 an hour to help people navigate that kind of chaos or to create that kind of chaos as a weapon against a person or to just threaten that kind of chaos.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Doesn’t that mean it’s in your interest to stretch out the process?

JAMES SEXTON: Yes. To amplify conflict and stretch it out and protract it. And by the way, I manipulate people’s emotional state for a living. I said that earlier. You don’t think I could use my powers for evil to get my client terrified and worried that forces are aligning against him?

By the way, that’s how good lawyers get their reputation as being good lawyers. Because sometimes we have a client where we could potentially make millions of dollars and we settle the case within like, $10,000 worth of fee. Like, I have a case right now where my opposing counsel is, I would consider the only lawyer in New York City better than me. Like, he’s sort of like an idol to me in the sense that he’s such a good trial lawyer and he’s my adversary on this case. And it’s not the first case we’ve had against each other.

And we are like, when the two of us go in a courtroom, it’s like T. Rex is fighting. We’re going to settle this case in, like two phone calls. Because we both are just not the kind of people that are going to unnecessarily amplify conflict. We have our reputation because we don’t do that. Like the best of us. That’s how you earn the reputation. The people that do that amplifying of conflict, word gets out. Word gets out. And this is a business where you live and die by your reputation.

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So I have some M&M’s here on something you love. M&M’s explain to me.

JAMES SEXTON: So this is actually a great illustration of what a prenup should be. Okay, all a prenup is. A prenup is not a referendum on the likelihood of us breaking up. A prenup is not a commentary on how much we trust each other. A prenup is not an opportunity to screw the person you’re about to join lives with. Okay?

A prenup is a rule set. It’s creating tranches. Okay, so you have some things. She has some things. Right now you don’t owe her anything. She doesn’t owe you anything. Yours is yours, hers is hers. You’re in the title system.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Can we talk about if we’re just dating? So if we’re dating, I heard that there’s some laws where if you date someone long enough, eventually they can basically argue that they own your stuff.

Common Law Marriage and Palimony

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. So that’s called what used to be called common law marriage or makes you responsible for what we call palimony, which is like alimony for a friend. Palimony. Okay? Most jurisdictions no longer honor that. It doesn’t exist. It was largely a function of the absence of marriage equality.

So once marriage equality occurred, once gay and lesbian individuals could marry, the court system essentially started saying there’s no such thing as a quasi marital relationship anymore. If you are married, you’re married. If you’re not, you’re not. So if you decide to live together and you don’t have a marriage, then you can’t have a quasi marital relationship anymore.

Now that marriage equality is the law of the land and everyone who wants to get married is allowed to get married, you can’t say, well, we were kind of like married, but we weren’t married. Like, you’re either married or you’re not married. Those are the two tranches. So that situation you’re in the title system, yours is yours, hers is hers. There is no we except for the voluntary we, okay?

STEVEN BARTLETT: So now, coming back to this example of these M&M’s and prenups.

Understanding Separate and Community Property

JAMES SEXTON: So here’s what marriage is. Simply put, there’s you, there’s me, and this is we. This is the bucket of we, okay? When we get married, we’re going to take you. I didn’t put it on. See, I didn’t put it all, okay? I’m keeping this separate. That’s called separate property, okay?

In California, this is called community property. This is anything I acquire during the marriage, okay? This is separate property. If I keep it separate, it stays separate, okay? It stays separate. Keep that thought. This is her, okay? She’s put some of hers in there, too. May not be exactly the same, but it’s pretty close to it. And by the way, we just got married. It’s pretty obvious to see which one’s which, right?

Okay, so this is any marriage, really, with or without a prenup, okay? This is what marriage looks like. There’s you and there’s me and there’s we. We’re combining. And by the way, this isn’t just for assets and liabilities. This is like the nature of our stuff, our furniture, the things we bring to the relationship. You could even argue it’s like what we watch on TV, right? It’s you, me, we, and we combine the two, okay?

Now, you and I both know this is actually what it starts to look like. It never stays this neat, does it? It always starts to get kind of mixed up together. In the law, we call that commingling. Okay? Now here’s what’s interesting. With a prenup, this stays this simple. Because anything you put in this, this bucket, is marital.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And that could be stuff I bought for the house. It could be a joint bank account.

JAMES SEXTON: It could be anything, okay? All we’re doing when we have a prenup is yours, mine, ours, and we’re defining that. So maybe I want you to feel I’m very invested in this relationship. So I throw some more in. Hey, babe, I just got a bonus at work. I’m throwing it into the way. I’m keeping a little over here. Here. I’m keeping a little over here.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Wait, can you do that after the marriage with a prenup?

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. So you can add to a prenup with a prenup? What you’re saying is if it’s in my name, it’s mine. Asset or liability. If it’s in your name, it’s yours. Asset or liability. If it’s in our joint names, we divide it 50/50. Or how we agree in writing, but we create three separate buckets. Yours, mine and ours. Okay.

Do you know what happens in the state of California after seven years? Or in the state of New York if you commingle assets in any way? This is solely things in your name. This is solely things in her name, things you owned before marriage. This is the you and the me before you got married. It’s community property now. All of it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Everything.

JAMES SEXTON: All of it. Every bit of it. You didn’t have a prenup. Everything that’s in it. Everything in here is subject to division. Everything that’s in here is subject to identification, valuation and division. And think about sorting that out.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And also going back to my friend, some of the value of these assets is up for debate.

JAMES SEXTON: Sure, sure. Not only is the value. Because look, some of these are cracked and some of them aren’t. And did they crack in this process or were they cracked before? Did she crack or did you crack them? And which ones are worth more than the others? And were these the same at the be. It doesn’t matter. It’s all in.

And by the way, take out the marital. Take out your property. Now how long is that going to take you? It’s impossible to do once you’re in the community property system, once you’ve put something into the we category. If you get married without a prenup, you can unintentionally buy into this, into this system, which, by the way, I make a very comfortable living helping people sort this out.

Whereas all you had to do was agree on the rule set of yours, mine, ours, and then this is intentional. Now I understand why that’s scary for some people because you have to have a conversation about, well, are we putting that in joint names or, well, you got that bonus. Are you putting it in my account or your account or some in your account and some in my account or some in this. But isn’t it better to keep some level of control over this?

The Financial Incentive to Avoid Prenups

STEVEN BARTLETT: If I was financially motivated individual and I was marrying say you and you were a billionaire, I mean, it’s very much in my interest to avoid this prenup.

JAMES SEXTON: Maybe. Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Because then, you know, it’s all going to become we in seven years time. So I’ve just got to be with you for seven years and then I can bounce out of this and I’m going to make half a billion. Have you ever seen that?

JAMES SEXTON: Of course.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Have you ever seen.

JAMES SEXTON: But here’s also what I will say to you. Flip that story for a second. So we’re married for six and a half years. It’s going pretty well. We’re at the six and a half year mark. You’re a billionaire, you’re probably not stupid, right? Are you going to take that bet?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is it seven years is the moment.

JAMES SEXTON: Seven years is the moment when it.

STEVEN BARTLETT: All becomes community property.

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So do you find some very successful people?

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, they spike the divorce rate at six years, six and a half years. Because why? It’s the same reason why I tell people don’t put what we call, you know, sunset clauses in a prenup. Because people, people all have the bright idea that they’re going to, oh, well, we’ll do a prenup, but after 10 years, it’ll go away after 10 years, you know, it’ll self destruct like in Mission Impossible.

And all that does is makes people ask really icky questions at the nine and a half year mark where they have to start going. Because seven years, seven years, it’s like the honeymoon’s over. Maybe you got a kid or two and all of a sudden you go, okay, do I want fully one half of everything I owned prior to the marriage to now be subject to division? Is it going that good? Do I want to take this bet?

Like, look, we live in reality. What you’re doing when you marry someone is you’re marrying your destiny to them and you’re making decisions about a future that you can’t see. It hasn’t happened yet.

STEVEN BARTLETT: If seven years is the moment when our assets become commingled to the point that community property, where we have to kind of split our assets in a relationship. Have you ever seen someone get to like seven years in one day and then file for divorce because they’re.

Strategic Timing of Divorce Filings

JAMES SEXTON: Oh yeah, I’ve had people who wait until the exact moment. Like, there’s other formulas that are applicable. Like, I have plenty of people right now that have come to me for a consultation and they’re like, yeah, I’m not going to file for another six months. Because, because we’ll hit 20 years in six months. And when we hit that, it kicks up to another level of alimony in terms of the formulas.

Like, here’s the thing, when the government makes decisions for you, they set numbers. Like, there’s a highway near where we are right now. It’s 55 miles an hour is an acceptable legal speed to drive on that 56. And you’re committing a crime. 76, and you’re committing a different level of crime. 106, and you’re committing a higher level felony crime. Right?

STEVEN BARTLETT: Right.

The Value of Prenuptial Agreements

JAMES SEXTON: Is 56 and 55 that much different? No. We had to pick a number, so we picked that number. So do you trust the government to pick the number? That’s the only question to ask when you’re thinking about a prenup. Do I trust the government so much that I’m going to let them pick the number?

Personally, I don’t. Personally, if I like someone so much that I’ve decided I’m going to choose them out of 8 billion other options, I would think I have enough faith in that person to come up with a rule set between us. And by the way, not a complicated rule set. If it’s in my name, it’s mine. If it’s in your name, it’s yours. If it’s in our name, it’s ours.

Then you can have all the conversations you want about why aren’t you putting things in joint names? Or why are you putting things in joint names? And here’s what I need to feel safe. Because here’s the thing. If you’re the billionaire or you’re the person marrying the billionaire, you both want to feel safe. Remember, we’re going back to what is it you want to feel? What is it you want to feel? That’s the key question. What do you want to feel? You both want to feel safe. Isn’t that fair?

I’ve represented a lot of victims of intimate partner abuse and domestic violence and coercive control. And I can tell you, you can’t feel loved if you don’t feel safe. And there’s lots of ways for a person to feel unsafe. Physically, emotionally, financially. There’s lots of ways to make someone feel unsafe.

I hope you want to make your fiancé feel safe, and I hope she wants to make you feel safe. So one of the ways that you make her feel safe, by the way, you can’t protect her from everything in the world. You know that. Like, somebody drops a nuke, there’s nothing you’re going to be able to do to help her with that. Okay, there’s lots of things that can happen that you can’t keep her safe from, but you’re going to do your darndest, and that’s great.

And by the way, like, she wants you to feel safe. She wants you to feel safe and not taken advantage of and loved for who you are. I have every confidence she does not love you just for money. There’s lots of people with money in the world. So she loves the unique combination of things that are you, one factor of which may be that you’re a very successful man professionally, and that makes her feel safe, and that makes her feel secure, and it makes her feel like she can really have a future with you that’s a bright and lovely one, and she can focus her energies on things other than finances. That’s great. This is great, man. We’re both happy. We’re doing the thing.

So what is wrong with just keeping this conversation an ongoing conversation about what is it we need to feel safe? Because if you are in that dynamic where she’s gorgeous and he’s rich, if she says to him, hey, if we split up, I’m going to need some things. I’m not really focusing on finances, and you have so much more than me. You’re telling me a guy’s not going to say, yeah, that makes sense.

And by the way, when’s the time to have that conversation? When you’re madly in love with each other at the beginning of this thing, when you’re on your knee in front of the restaurant, you know, proposing to the person. You don’t have it when you’re breaking up. That’s the worst time to have that conversation. Have it when you’re first having that abundance of optimism and connection to each other.

And then, by the way, what does he feel unsafe about? He feels unsafe that he’s saying, look, I’m willing to contribute financially to this relationship. Clearly, I’ve proven that. I bought you a Birkin bag. I bought you a car. I pay for your bills. I’m signing on to marry you and to give you a wonderful, beautiful life. Are you entitled to 100% or 50% of everything I’ve ever owned? I have so much more than you right now. Like, that seems wildly unfair. Are you saying that everything I earn from the date of marriage on, we should split?

That’s what’s great about a prenup. You can make whatever rules you want to in that situation. So I believe there is genuine value in having honest conversations about these things. Look, it’s just M&Ms. It’s just money at the end of the day. And by the way, this has no more real value than the pieces of paper you’re holding in your pocket that we’ve attributed value to. If anything, this tastes good. Chew on money all you want. It won’t help.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I did have this conversation with my partner, and we talked about it. And she was very supportive of a prenup because she also wants one, and she wants to protect her assets and the business that she’s built and all those kinds of things, which was useful. But also I acknowledged, you know, that I earn more money. So in the event that we have a big family in the future, we have four or five kids, you know, I think I need to contribute more to make sure that she’s fine in the event I’m not, of course.

JAMES SEXTON: But see, this is the point. You’re a reasonable person. If your response when she said, well, you know, we may want to have a family, and, you know, if we do, you have so much more than me. And although I’m signing off to protect your assets, the pursuits I am really concentrating my day on are not purely financial. They’re more for the good of the world or for the good of individuals. I’m a helper. I’m a person who wants to make the world a better place.

You know, I know a little bit about her. I know that these are her goals. Her goal is not to be the CEO of everything. Her goal is to help the world and to help people. That’s beautiful. That’s probably one of the reasons why you love her so much. And so isn’t that a conversation the two of you should have now and say, well, of course. And by the way, if we have kids, I’m going to need different things. What’s great about a prenup is you can make one that says if we don’t have kids, it’s this. If we have kids, it’s this. There’s protections you can put in that make sense to both of you.

Pet Custody and Petnups

STEVEN BARTLETT: What about petnup? I’ve heard about this petnup.

JAMES SEXTON: Petnup? Yeah.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What’s a petnup? And do people actually use them?

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, yeah. A petnup is, I actually created the site trustedpetnup.com and it’s free. It’s 100% free. It’s a pay as you wish. So if you want to pay anything towards it, 100% of it goes to animal shelters, basically to 501c3 animal shelters.

But essentially, what we have found is happening more in the legal system right now is the equivalent of custody cases, but for companion animals. So people have a dog, people have a cat, people have a bird, people have any combination of animals. We feel deeply emotionally invested in our pets. The law for many years looked at pets as what was called chattel. Chattel is property. And property is essentially like if you killed someone’s dog, you owed them the replacement value of the dog.

STEVEN BARTLETT: What you tend to see from a legal perspective here is that at one point they bought a pet together. They never really clarified who owns the pet. They go through a divorce. They’re both arguing over the pet.

JAMES SEXTON: That happened a lot. Yeah, that was the most common permutation. Sometimes it was they got a pet together while they were dating, and one of them was living, you know, in their own apartment or whatever, and the dog or cat was living with them. And then they merged their homes. And now they both grow deeply attached to this animal. And, you know, they’ve spent five years or 10 years together with this animal, and now they’re both like a child. They both feel like a stepchild is very similar. It’s not my blood child, but it’s someone who I’ve spent a long time with and been part of their care, and I mean something to them.

STEVEN BARTLETT: So what’s the legal solution? What is the answer?

JAMES SEXTON: Well, for many, many years, pets were considered chattel. They were considered property. So, you know, I remember a case in New York County where the parties could not agree on what to do with the dog, who would keep the dog. And the judge said, okay, I’m ordering the dog to be sold and the proceeds divided. And of course, the people then went outside and figured it out. It was very Solomon-like. The people went outside and figured out a visitation schedule for the dog.

But what we’re just saying is, just like anything in a prenup, do this in advance. Just do this in advance. You have a pet. Have a petnup. Even if you’re not getting married, if you’re cohabitating or you’re dating someone, have a contract that says, we both care about this animal. We’ve adopted this animal, or we purchased this animal, or we brought this animal into our lives. And now, in the event that our relationship ends, here’s what the rules will be.

We will jointly make important medical decisions and be guided by the veterinarian’s perspective. If either of us ever is going to give up the animal for adoption, the other person will have the automatic right to adopt the animal. If the time eventually comes where there has been a recommendation of euthanasia, we will both be entitled to be there when we say goodbye to that dog, or we’ll both be entitled to jointly agree on where that animal’s ashes will be or where they’ll be buried, or we’ll each be entitled to one half of the ashes, or we’ll have a visitation schedule for the dog in the event that we separate.

That’s what a petnup is. A petnup is a contract between two people. Look, just like kids, pets didn’t ask for this. Pets didn’t ask for you guys to break up. It’s not their fault. I don’t know anybody that ever broke up because of the dog or the cat. I’m sure there’s somebody out there, but that’s not what it’s about. So it is very, very useful to have in advance a rule set. I like rules in advance. I like to know the rules of the game that we’re playing because we can adjust our behavior accordingly.

Divorce Statistics and Trends

STEVEN BARTLETT: Is divorce increasing statistically?

JAMES SEXTON: So the most recent statistic is the divorce rate is slowly going up. It was low. It had gone down. It went down during the pandemic. Part of that was a function of access to the court system. When you’re looking at the divorce rate, the divorce rate is calculated based on the filing of what’s called certificate of dissolution of marriage, which is the final document that’s filed with the state by the court system when a divorce has been finalized.

So all you’re really seeing there is what marriages catastrophically failed and there was a judgment of divorce entered. There are many people that just go out for milk and never come back, or they physically separate and then they never finalize the divorce. They’re not factored into that statistic. And the people who quietly stay together, miserable, or live in different places and just move out and never finalize their divorce, that statistic doesn’t include any of those people. These are just the people that it actually ended in divorce and that divorce was registered with the state.

But the divorce rate went down, and then the divorce filing rate spiked when the court systems opened back up post-pandemic, and now it’s steadily going back up again. Now what’s interesting is the marriage rate is going down and the average age at which people marry is going up.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I was looking at the generational divide here, and it says younger couples, so millennials and Gen Z, divorce rates have plummeted. They are marrying later, cohabiting first and statistically more selective, leading to more stable marriages. However, there is something called the gray divorce. Divorce rates for people over 50, they refer to as gray divorce, has doubled since 1990 and tripled for those over 65.

The Rise of Gray Divorce

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah. Gray divorce is something that a lot of divorce lawyers are thinking and talking a lot about right now, which is that, first of all, people are living much longer. People are living in a different way much longer, thanks to things like erectile dysfunction medication. You know, an 80-year-old having an active sex life is not something that really existed so often prior to the pharmaceutical advent of erectile dysfunction drugs, which really only occurred in the last 20 years.

So there’s a big change in what a 70-year-old or 80-year-old’s quality of life is and what they look like and what their health is like. So, you know, with hormone replacement therapy, with all the different medications that are out there, people are living more sexually and romantically charged lives in their elder years than they used to, which often leads people to say, you know what? I’ve got 10 more years. I’m not going to stay in this unhappy relationship and I’m going to split up.

I actually don’t think, by the way, that those two statistics that you just talked about are unrelated. I think millennials, they haven’t been married for that long yet. The question of catastrophic failure of a marriage, I’ve said it before that people get divorced the same way they go bankrupt, very slowly and then often.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Well, two of the reasons given in the research I did as well were quite unobvious on the surface. One of them is that women in this generation, boomers and Gen Z, are more likely to have their own careers and retirement savings than previous generations, meaning they can afford to leave unhappy marriages. That’s peace.

And when I’ve spoken with menopause experts and so on, they’ve told me they see this often, that in the season of life, women will make a decision to leave. And the other one is the reduced stigma about divorce. So divorce is no longer seen as a moral failure, making it socially easier to split later in life.

JAMES SEXTON: I believe that that’s true. I think that we’ve definitely changed the manner in which we relate to divorce. We no longer consider it a catastrophic failure socially. I think that we often see it as the ending of a chapter and the beginning of a new one. I don’t think that that’s bad.

I think destigmatizing divorce and seeing that, okay, sometimes it is better for people when the relationship is no longer working for both of them and they’ve done the things they’ve tried to do to make it work, and they’ve decided that happily ever after means happily ever after separately. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Similarly, you could make the argument that one of the reasons millennials, and again, only time will tell that millennials are better at staying married is going to be that they go into it with more realistic expectations. They don’t go into it with the expectation that this person’s going to be their everything. They look at it and go, yeah, as a human being, I’m marrying another human being. I haven’t quite figured myself out yet.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Which of your books was more popular? “How Not to F* Up Your Marriage, Straight Talk from a Divorce Lawyer Who’s Seen It All,” or “How to Stay in Love”?

JAMES SEXTON: So “How to Stay in Love” has been out longer. So it’s done quite well over the period of time. It’s in its fourth printing right now.

STEVEN BARTLETT: And what about this book do you think was resonant? Is there a particular idea that was number one in this book?

JAMES SEXTON: I think, a, it was the first book written by a divorce lawyer to head on take on the topic of how to not get divorced. It was a “how not to” book, basically. So I think that was the key concept, was keeping people connected and what you could learn.

Look, who are you going to go to if you want to learn how to keep your car in good condition? A new car dealer or a mechanic? A new car dealer only sees brand new cars. They don’t know anything about how to actually keep one together. Mechanics are good at that. We tell you where the predictable points of failure are. So I think that was what made the book popular.

The Most Important Thing About Love

STEVEN BARTLETT: What’s the most important thing we didn’t talk about that we should have talked about, as it pertains to the subject of holding onto this very precious thing and very elusive thing for many called love?

JAMES SEXTON: You know, something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is, and I say this to you as an engaged man and as a friend, I think there’s two seemingly contradictory assumptions people make when they get married that I hope you’re not making. I hope this couple, neither person in this couple is making.

One is thinking that marriage will change the other person. So, you know, Steven works so much and he’s so hard charging, but once we get married, he’ll come home more and he’ll be home more and he’ll calm down more. You know, she’s very worried about me when I’m, I’m making something up, but she’s worried about me when I’m out and on the road. And she’s worried about temptation bothering me. But once we’re married, she’ll know we have a really solid commitment. She won’t have that worry anymore.

Thinking that marriage is going to change someone is a very dangerous assumption. And a lot of the people that come into my office, they entered marriage thinking, this is going to change things that I want to see changed.

The contradictory second thing is thinking, once we get married, nothing will change. Thinking, this is so lovely. She’s so wonderful. I love the version of me she brings out. So I’m so wonderful when I’m with her and her thinking, he’s so wonderful, and I love how he makes me. Because, you know, we don’t just love the person. We love the person we are when we’re with that person. We love how that person makes us feel about ourselves. That’s a lovely thing. It’s one of the best things about love, right?

So making the assumption that that will never change, that nothing about this relationship, that marrying will somehow build a wall around this beautiful, wonderful, warm thing that we found together, and it’ll protect it from all the other things in the world and nothing will change and it’ll just stay wonderful is another very dangerous assumption.

So even though it seems like a contradiction, I hope that things change, and I hope some things don’t change. And the only way that I can think of to let those two contradictory elements peacefully coexist in a manner that doesn’t lead directly to the desk in front of me is to just keep talking about it.

And when things change, just talk about it. Just point it out. Not with judgment, not with anger, not with the belief that because something changed, it’s bad. And not with the change, that change is automatically good. Just saying, hey, remember these two people? That guy’s a little different now. Is that okay? Why did that happen? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Do you miss him? Is there something that we could do that’s different or better?

These two people found value in each other. They love the other person and they love who they are when they’re with the person. And again, I’ll say it again. Your marriage will end, I promise. I hope it ends in death. And I hope when it ends, that you will look at her and you will say, she helped me become the most authentic version of myself. And she’s still my favorite person. That’s the greatest gift that you could give to her and that you can give to each other. And that I think the two of you together could give to the world. And that’s worth all the M&Ms.

The Importance of Authenticity

STEVEN BARTLETT: Why’d you point to authenticity as being so important in this context? Because you used that word. She helped me become the most authentic version of myself. Why does that matter?

JAMES SEXTON: Because it’s not about becoming the version of you that she envisions for you or her becoming who you want her to become. I think that sometimes the person doesn’t become what we wanted them to be. And I think sometimes what we wanted them to be might not be the most authentic version of who they are.

You know Kahlil Gibran in “The Prophet,” when he’s talking about children, he says that children are living arrows and that you fire the arrow and yes, your aim has something to do with it, but the wind has something to do with it. And so many other things have something to do with it. And so, you know, God loves the archer with the steady hand and the arrow that’s straight.

And I feel like if you were to say this person became who I wanted them to become, because again, I think our duty in the best symbiosis, you care a lot about her, even more so than you do about yourself. And she cares about you even more so than she does about herself. But not to have you become the man she wants you to be and not for her to become the woman you want her to be.

You want to be of service to her and she wants to be of service to you. I want to help you become the most authentic version of you. I can see your blind spots. You can’t. That’s why they’re blind spots. So I’m going to help you become the most authentic version of yourself.

That’s the promise that should be the promise in marriage is I want to help you become, I’m going to do what I can to be of service to helping you become the most authentic version of yourself. And when you become it, you’ll still be my favorite person. Because at the core of you is this thing that I love.

STEVEN BARTLETT: I hope I do a good job.

JAMES SEXTON: I hope you do too.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Scary, isn’t it? Because you think of all the ways you can f* it up. It’s like, do you know what I mean? There’s so many ways you can.

JAMES SEXTON: But you know what? That’s why it’s brave. If you’re not scared, it’s not brave. It’s brave because you’re scared and you do it anyway. And it’s worth doing it because if the prize at the end of it is figuring out who you are and helping someone figure out who they are and having a partner in all of this, what’s better than that, man?

What riches could you hold that are greater than that? That’s the greatest gift you could seek in life. And by the way, it also has the power, if it’s done right, to transform the world, because it really is family, community, culture, world, you know?

And so, yeah, the fact that you say it’s scary is great because it means you realize this is a serious thing. And something that you realize is serious, you’re going to make a concerted effort to be good at.

A Dream About Love

STEVEN BARTLETT: Amen. We have a closing tradition, as you know. The question left for you is, what is the most significant dream you have had in the past year? And how did it change your behavior?

JAMES SEXTON: I know I want to get through this without crying. I had a, I dream about my mom.

STEVEN BARTLETT: It’s okay.

JAMES SEXTON: My mom died 10 years ago after a long battle with cancer. There was a lot between us that needed to be said and wasn’t said. We had some peace and some closure, but there’s a lot I hadn’t figured out about myself by the time she passed. And there’s a part of me that wishes she was here so that I could have apologized for some things I got wrong and I could have understood her better.

And I had a dream that she was just there, just sitting with me. And my mom was like me. She never shut up. She would just constantly talk and talk over you. I got that from her. Very energetic. She also cried constantly for joy, tears of joy. She would listen to music and start crying because it was so beautiful. I realized I got that from her. Most of the really warm things in me came from her.

And in this dream, she just sat there silently. And I kept talking to her. I don’t remember what I was saying, but I just kept talking to her. And she just sat there quietly and just was patting my leg. And I remember I woke up and I felt very calm. I felt very like I’d spent time with her.

And I thought to myself, I think that that was something. I don’t know if it was her visiting me. I don’t know if it was God talking to me. I don’t know if it was just my subconscious telling me something I needed to see, but I felt like it was saying to me that, you know, that sometimes the words got in the way between the two of us and that maybe what really mattered the most was just that we were next to each other.

And I tried to, since I had that dream, do that more with the people I love. It’s hard for me to stop talking. And I’m learning with my sons and with the people that I love that sometimes just being next to them is nice, that I don’t need to, I’m really good at talking, so I just keep doing it, and that maybe sometimes it’s nice to just stop and just be with someone.

And so I felt like that was a very powerful dream. It was a very simple dream, but it was one that changed the way I’m trying to relate to people. So you got me to cry again, man. You’re killing me.

STEVEN BARTLETT: At the end of the day, it all comes back to love, doesn’t it?

JAMES SEXTON: Yeah, it does. Isn’t it funny?

STEVEN BARTLETT: All roads.

JAMES SEXTON: Isn’t it funny? We’ve added all these layers of complexity to it. That’s all it comes down to.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Isn’t it crazy? Someone asked me that on stage last week. I was speaking in the Middle East somewhere, and they asked me about what does everybody want? That was literally the question. And my answer was love. And we’re confused about the path to it. So some of us think the path to it is if I get the number one podcast, maybe that would mean.

JAMES SEXTON: Or maybe that would mean I’m worthy of love.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Yeah.

The True Meaning of Accomplishment

JAMES SEXTON: We’ve come to associate accomplishments with being worthy of love. And that’s really all that it is. It’s really all that it is. What otherwise, what’s the purpose of it? How many supercars can one person have? And how much joy can they really give you? You can only drive them one at a time, you know?

It really is about, no, I feel worthy. I feel worthy of love. I feel proud of who I am, which is, I’m proud of who I am, which means I’m worthy of love. It really all comes back to love. It really all comes back to love.

The two things that late middle age is helping me see is that the hardest thing to become is yourself, your authentic self. And that really all any of us want is to be loved, and to be worthy of love. And that everything you have will add up to a great pile of nothing other than the people who you love and the people who love you and the experiences you had with those people.

That’s it. That’s all that matters. Everything else is noise.

STEVEN BARTLETT: James. Thank you.

JAMES SEXTON: Thank you. Always good to see you.

STEVEN BARTLETT: Good to see you, too.

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